ADP report estimates 176K private-sector jobs added in June

posted at 9:01 am on July 5, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Tomorrow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will produce the June jobs report, but we have a look at two key indicators this morning. First, weekly initial jobless claims dropped to 374,000, a decline from last week’s adjusted number of 388,000:

In the week ending June 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 374,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 388,000. The 4-week moving average was 385,750, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 387,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending June 23, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 23 was 3,306,000, an increase of 4,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,302,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,304,250, a decrease of 3,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,307,250.

Last week’s report was at 386K initially, and we can probably expect this week’s number to rise next week, too. Thanks to the holiday, the number may rise more than usual; this data series gets volatile around holidays, and especially Independence Day, for some reason. However, assuming the adjustment is small, it’s not much of a change. The changing level of claims continues to be within the statistical-noise band; this has been a pretty stable indicator for more than a year now, so there isn’t anything to indicate a significant change in the labor market in either direction.

Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 176,000 from May to June, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gain from April to May was revised up slightly, from the initial estimate of 133,000 to a revised estimate of 136,000.

Employment on large payrolls—those with 500 or more workers—increased 11,000 and employment on medium payrolls—those with 50 to 499 workers—rose 72,000 in June. Employment on small payrolls—those with up to 49 workers—rose 93,000 that same period. Of the 72,000 jobs created by medium- sized payrolls, 7,000 jobs were created by the goods producing sector and 65,000 jobs were created by the service-providing sector.

The number on its own would show modest growth in the job market above the level needed for population growth (between 125K-150K), if the number reliably indicated the BLS data. However, ADP’s reports almost always overstate job growth as measured by BLS. ADP’s measure of job growth in May, 133,000, is almost double that from the BLS report of 69,000.

ABC News reports that analyst expectations fall in line with that same ADP/BLS ratio:

The Labor Department’s June jobs report–the most closely-watched economic number leading up to the presidential election–will be released on Friday and economists don’t expect much summer sunshine in the nation’s unemployment picture.

Economists expect that employers added around 90,000 jobs in June, higher than the 69,000 jobs added in May, but lower than what is needed for a full economic recovery from the last recession that began with the mortgage meltdown in 2008.

Again, bear in mind that the economy has to add 125K-150K jobs each month to keep up with population growth — and more than that now to keep up with the work permits being issued by the federal government as part of Barack Obama’s new immigration policies. A 90K growth in jobs would look bleak, representing a negative practical growth rate in jobs, and approaching a literal negative number.

Meanwhile, the number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms fell in June to its lowest level in over a year, suggesting employers were not rapidly downsizing even as the economic recovery slows, a report on Thursday showed.

Employers announced 37,551 planned job cuts last month, down 39.3 percent from 61,887 in May, according to the report from consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Job cuts were also down 9.4 percent from June last year when 41,432 reductions were announced. Layoffs were at their lowest level since May 2011.

Despite recent signs that the economic recovery is losing steam, employers appear reluctant to shed too many workers, John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.

“While it does not take long to shrink payrolls, it can take a significant amount of time to rebuild them, particularly as reports of a growing skills gap become more widespread,” he said.

I’ll predict that the number tomorrow will be 105,000 jobs added, with a jobless rate of 8.2%. What are your predictions on the jobs-added figure? Take the poll:

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It’s a nice uptick, but we are still not expecting much from tomorrow’s report. There has been growing evidence that the Spring slowdown is easing and business is beginning to pick up again, but Europe continues to be the dark cloud overhead. 4-week average on 1st time claims holding steady; we’ll see what the jobs report tomorrow has to say. We’ll be pleasantly surprised if it is much above +100K. Meanwhile, the focus is about to shift to earnings season, and in particular guidance for the rest of the year …

Stays at 8.2% : WH announces that things are leveling off and looking up.

Rise above 8.2% : WH announces that more people are now seeking jobs, since the economy is improving and the private sector is doing fine.

Nobody will question as to how many more 99′rs have dropped off the roles and that they aren’t counting the 50% of college graduates who moved in with Mom and Dad last month because they couldn’t find a job, yet aren’t counted on the unemployment roles.

I predict they’ll either pad the number at over 200,000 to get people hyped up about employment growth and when it starts to fall blame the GOP for continuing to make healthcare uncertain, or they will pad it really low and start adjusting it upward as election day gets closer.

Lay-offs are only down because employers can only cut payrolls so much before they start compromising their ability to perform basic services.

If normal trends of expansion and contraction were still in play a reduction in lay-offs would be a good sign. After 3 years of fools regulating the employment fabric of our nation–i.e., tinkering with the mechanics–trends have lost their significance.

What fools we are to allow such self-serving cretins access to the family silver.

Does this mean we’re still in the ditch and Oblahblah is gunnin’ the engine?
If this is the best ADP can do, would you want them doing your payroll?
Imagine how great this country would be if there were no libs ever in charge and the leaders followed the constitution.

Even if the numbers suck on steroids, Dear Leader will tell us about how much worse it would have been without him, and the GOP is obstructing His efforts to create (government/union) jobs and that it is all Bush’s fault.

I had an out-of-work medical transcriptionist tell me the other day about her most recent neurology exam.

Seems that she never saw or spoke with the doctor who administered her exam. He sat at a keyboard in another room. A tech took care of her. With the new system it is more important for the doctor to enter the data than to talk with the patient, hence the transcriptionist is out of work.

I wonder if doctors realize they are Barry’s equivalent to ATMs? And who could possibly think this is progress? Maybe by lowering the personal skills required for Physicians, Barry’s team thinks that will ultimately improve medical care. Kinda like improving our political leadership by electing unqualified incompetent hacks. So maybe my OOW transcriptionist friend just needs to go back to school long enough to make the jump from Data Transcriptionist to Glorified Data Transcriptionist, M.D. Now that I think about it, I’m sure that is the solution that would make everyone happier, healthier and more satisfied in their lives.

Last week’s report was at 386K initially, and we can probably expect this week’s number to rise next week, too. Thanks to the holiday, the number may rise more than usual; this data series gets volatile around holidays, and especially Independence Day, for some reason.

Unemployment runs in six-month intervals. So a lot of people think their benefits automatically re-starts, but it doesn’t until you refile. This creates a lag of about a month as people are moved to whatever is their next level, usually from state unemployment to federal.

So I’d expect end of July or August to be nominal since the mild winter decelerated usual seasonal layoffs. Whoever was laid off last winter/spring will be re-filing, creating a dip one month, then a spike.

Whichever month had the heaviest layoffs count forward six months. IIRC, it was May, which puts us right at November.

This is why Barry said the “private sector was fine” and was bitching about state layoffs. School, holidays and seasonal jobs creates a huge amount of volatility. Add the public sector, and this month might be the big unemployment lull.

I said 175,000 to 200,000, with his Lection on the line I think OBlahBLah had Axelgrease drag the severed horse head out of Roberts trash bin and drag it over to the heads of the BLS!

I will be all too happy to remind you all of this prognostication tomorrow when the unemployment rate drops to 8% and the Presstitutes all HAil the kING who will eventually get it below 8% just in time to txt his peeps on their free OBLahBLah phones to rock the vote and rock the repunk voters!

Even if the numbers suck on steroids, Dear Leader will tell us about how much worse it would have been without him, and the GOP is obstructing His efforts to create (government/union) jobs and that it is all Bush’s fault.

krome on July 5, 2012 at 10:03 AM

Fine, let him say it, shout it from the rooftops. People will continue to tune him out or get angry.

See the commies even hacked Fast Eds polling, just doin a dry run for this fall when the SEIU readjusts the voting machines like they did in NV. You can trust that the Repunks have their heads up their backsides and are doing nothing to remedy this situation as the commies figure faster and easier ways to steal elections.

Besides whatever number it is tomorrow will be, according to the Presstitutes, amazingly good considering all the Global Baloney storms that have decimated the kINGS very fine economic Recovery Summer!

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force:

May 2012, Seasonally Adjusted: 14.8%

NOTE: Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

I predict that whatever the numbers actually are the WH will massage the statistics to show unemployment actually dropping to 8% or less. In fact, I’ll bet that the official unemployment figures will continue to decrease until after the election, proving that (a) Barry has made things better or (b) if Mitt wins, the real number will be shown and this will be proof that Romney has driven us into an actual depression.

Why would many of these unemployed look for work when they can draw goberment welfare (unemployment checks) for two years? And now they will get free healthcare us workers provide?
Happy Dependence Decade!
Thank a liberal and remind the dependents to Thank You, if you have a job!

This is closer than you think. One of my friends works as a developer for a startup that has a working prototype of a healthcare “booth”. Patient enters the booth, and it connects to a remote physician. Different items, such as stethoscope and blood pressure cuffs are in auto-drawers that the remote doctor can open for the patient to use. One of the biggest groups interested in the technology are truck stop locations. It sounds weird (even to me), but supposedly they’ve had some very positive testing results…

I wonder if ADP polls its competitors or if they just use their own numbers. My company just switched to them from PrimePay. If they counted our staff as a gain, in reality that number would be static employment-wise, since most of our head count has remained the same for the past year or so.

For those that don’t know, ADP is not in the business of human resources-related services. Their business is the management of other peoples’ money. At any given time, they hold a billion+ dollars and make a rather nice revenue stream from the interest alone.

Furthermore, a company such as ADP is in bed with the bureaucrats who will put forth the most regulations/burdens on employers in order to scare them into using their “services’.

One tactic was to reference the iPhone app created by the department of labor into scaring employers to use ADP to mitigate risk associated with an employee lawsuit for unpaid hours.

5 will get you 10 that the numbers tomorrow will be lower by a bit. They never are the same and they have yet to be higher on Fri following the ADP report and the monthly average for UEI claims is not looking very good either………..we are floundering badly and that is all there is to it.

Um since when is 125k to 150k is just keeping up with population growth? I thought it was 250k-ish instead. Is the 125k number from someone in the Obama admin so it doesn’t sound so bad with the low numbers coming out?

Also I bet that with the Obamaca… Tax ruling, job growth will come to a screeching halt. We should see this come in the July jobs report in August.